Pouring

It's fitting that today's a rainy one in Richmond.

I knew this would happen. No sooner do I get a date made for this Saturday than a dating service (non-online) that I joined a year or so ago - and that's been dormant and not referring anyone to me for months, by the way - sends me a letter about my new referral.

Literally the next day they send this to me. I'm looking for surveillance cameras. Someone in that tasteful salmon-and-ecru office is giggling at me right now. Hmph.

I dread these situations - much as it can feel muy macho to date two women at once, I stink on ice at it. I'll do intelligent things like forget which parts of my life story I've told whom (and mix up who told me what parts of theirs; "You mean you didn't get fired last week? Whoops, who else could I have been thinking of?"), and probably end up double-booking them through a brain-glitch some evening because I'm so happy to have females speaking to me at all.

Dammit. This always seems to happen, too. It's the third time in a year and a half - the minute I get some self-confidence women just converge on me, and then I wind up bobbling everything I've got in the air and ticking everyone off.

OK, people, help save yourselves from another year of me wailing, "wah, wah, I'm no good with women, I'm gonna die lonely and never have sex again."

What do y'all consider the right (and correct in terms of etiquette) course of action?

• tell my new referral (who's probably been waiting just as long for her envelope) in some tactful way that boy, the timing's bad, but I just met someone and I prefer not to multitask; sure, I'll pay for your blown referral, but can I call you sometime if this one doesn't work out?
  
• suck it up, rejoice in my newfound luck and magnetism and have a blast; also see what's "in" in Kevlar this season and invest in a security system
  
• never call either of them, grab a stogie, a shot glass and a bottle of Wild Turkey, and thank my lucky stars I woke up before allowing women into my life again
  
• move to Utah with both of them and try to find a county where they don't keep their law-enforcement too up to date

-Rich